Geography

Ethiopia is in east-central Africa, bordered on
the west by the Sudan, the east by Somalia and Djibouti, the south by
Kenya, and the northeast by Eritrea. It has several high mountains, the
highest of which is Ras Dashan at 15,158 ft (4,620 m). The Blue Nile, or
Abbai, rises in the northwest and flows in a great semicircle before
entering the Sudan. Its chief reservoir, Lake Tana, lies in the
northwest.

Government

Federal republic.

History

Archeologists have found the oldest known human
ancestors in Ethiopia, including
Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba
(c.
5.8–5.2 million years old) and
Australopithecus anamensis
(c.
4.2 million years old). Originally called Abyssinia, Ethiopia is
sub-Saharan Africa's oldest state, and its Solomonic dynasty claims
descent from King Menelik I, traditionally believed to have been the son
of the queen of Sheba and King Solomon. The current nation is a
consolidation of smaller kingdoms that owed feudal allegiance to the
Ethiopian emperor.

Hamitic peoples migrated to Ethiopia from Asia
Minor in prehistoric times. Semitic traders from Arabia penetrated the
region in the 7th century
B.C.
Its Red Sea
ports were important to the Roman and Byzantine Empires. Coptic
Christianity was brought to the region in
A.D.
341, and a variant of it became Ethiopia's state religion. Ancient
Ethiopia reached its peak in the 5th century, then was isolated by the
rise of Islam and weakened by feudal wars.

Modern Ethiopia emerged under Emperor Menelik
II, who established its independence by routing an Italian invasion in
1896. He expanded Ethiopia by conquest. Disorders that followed Menelik's
death brought his daughter to the throne in 1917, with his cousin, Tafari
Makonnen, as regent and heir apparent. When the empress died in 1930,
Tafari was crowned Emperor Haile Selassie I.

Haile Selassie, called the “Lion of
Judah,” outlawed slavery and tried to centralize his scattered
realm, in which 70 languages were spoken. In 1931, he created a
constitution, revised in 1955, that called for a parliament with an
appointed senate, an elected chamber of deputies, and a system of courts.
But basic power remained with the emperor.

Fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia on Oct. 3, 1935,
forcing Haile Selassie into exile in May 1936. Ethiopia was annexed to
Eritrea, then an Italian colony, and to Italian Somaliland, forming
Italian East Africa. In 1941, British troops routed the Italians, and
Haile Selassie returned to Addis Ababa. In 1952, Eritrea was incorporated
into Ethiopia.